The characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) and their response to climate change is an issue of broad concern.

As the Earth’s atmosphere warms, the atmospheric circulation changes. These changes vary by region and time of year, but there is evidence that anthropogenic warming causes a general weakening of summertime tropical circulation. Because tropical cyclones are carried along within their ambient environmental wind, there is a plausible a priori expectation that the translation speed of tropical cyclones has slowed with warming.

Potential risks of supply shortages for critical metals including rare-earth elements and yttrium (REY) have spurred great interest in commercial mining of deep-sea mineral resources. Deep-sea mud containing over 5,000 ppm total REY content was discovered in the western North Pacific Ocean near Minamitorishima Island, Japan, in 2013. This REY-rich mud has great potential as a rare-earth metal resource because of the enormous amount available and its advantageous mineralogical features.

Using reanalysis datasets and numerical simulations, the relationship between the stratospheric Arctic vortex (SAV) and the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) on decadal time scales was investigated. A significant in-phase relationship between the PDO and SAV on decadal time scales during 1950–2014 is found, that is, the North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) cooling (warming) associated with the positive (negative) PDO phases is closely related to the strengthening (weakening) of the SAV.

Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. Here we characterise and quantify a major ocean plastic accumulation zone formed in subtropical waters between California and Hawaii: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Our model, calibrated with data from multi-vessel and aircraft surveys, predicted at least 79 (45–129) thousand tonnes of ocean plastic are floating inside an area of 1.6 million km2; a figure four to sixteen times higher than previously reported.

We examine the capability of thirteen Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) phase 5 (CMIP5) models in simulating climatology and interannual variability of Winter North Pacific Storm Track (WNPST). It is found that nearly half of the selected models can reproduce the spatial pattern of WNPST climatology. However, the strength and spatial variation of WNPST climatology are weak in most of the models.

Original Source

Pelagic ecosystems are dynamic ocean regions whose immense natural capital is affected by climate change, pollution, and commercial fisheries. Trophic level–based indicators derived from fishery catch data may reveal the food web status of these systems, but the utility of these metrics has been debated because of targeting bias in fisheries catch. We analyze a unique, fishery-independent data set of North Pacific seabird tissues to inform ecosystem trends over 13 decades (1890s to 2010s).

In this paper, satellite-based precipitation, clouds with infrared (IR) brightness temperature (BT), and tropical cyclone (TC) data from 2000 to 2015 are used to explore the relationship between precipitation, convective cloud, and TC intensity change in the Western North Pacific Ocean. An IR BT of 208 K was chosen as a threshold for deep convection based on different diurnal cycles of IR BT.

The past decades have been characterized by a growing number of climatic anomalies. As these anomalies tend to occur suddenly and unexpectedly, it is often difficult to procure empirical evidence of their effects on natural populations. We analysed how the recent sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly in the northeastern Pacific Ocean affects body condition, nutritional status, and immune competence of California sea lion pups.

In the Salish Sea, the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) is a high trophic indicator of ecosystem health. Three major threats have been identified for this population: reduced prey availability, anthropogenic contaminants, and marine vessel disturbances. These perturbations can culminate in significant morbidity and mortality, usually associated with secondary infections that have a predilection to the respiratory system.

Pages